Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi: US Remains John McCain's Government

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

What's the true cost of US involvement in the Middle East? Join Judge Napolitano and Phil Giraldi as we explore troop deployment, geopolitics, and the battle for truth. 🌍🔍 #MiddleEast #USMilitary #GeopoliticsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, January 31st, 2024. Our dear friend Phil Giraldi joins us now. Phil, it's always a pleasure. You and I have followed the International Court of Justice, and while it didn't say as a matter of law that Israel was engaged in genocide, it clearly said, stop the genocide and report to us in 30 days. The stop the genocide was a vote of 15 to 2. The report in 30 days was a vote of 16 to 1 with the Israeli appointed justice joining the 16. Do you think there's any implication for the United States becoming a co-defendant in this case because of its unabashed supplying of the instruments of genocide? Well, you know, I've been reading a lot of analysis

from people who understand legal issues a lot better than I do and judicial issues. And they're kind of coming down all over the map, but are essentially saying that, yes, the United States is complicit in these genocide leading type actions that the Israelis are engaged in. that would mean the the money that's being given to israel to fight the war the weapons that are being uh delivered and uh and described as emergency defense weapons for israel but they're in fact being used uh to carry out the bombing and uh strafing of Gaza, killing.

What bothers me is we've got another month till this alleged report comes out, which, of course, Israel will deny everything. And every day the bombing continues, the famine continues, the disease continues. There are anywhere from 300 to 500 Palestiniansestinians mostly women and children who are dying every single day while this process plays out so that's what that's what i think upsets me most about it i would have liked to have seen a either since they won't accept a ceasefire how about another one of these pauses maybe to uh to gain a little sanity on what's going on there. Here's President Biden speaking about his plans to retaliate,

potentially retaliate against Iran because he says Iran is supplying the weapons to whoever attacked our military base in the middle of nowhere at the Jordanian-Syrian border that killed three soldiers and wounded 34 others. We'll get to that in a minute. But I want to analyze with you what the president said. There's a lot of noise in the background, but you'll see popping up on the screen subtitles so you can hear the question that they're supplying the weapons to the people who didn't. We'll have that discussion. How do you describe these attacks in the past? What will be different this time? We'll see. The key is I do hold Iran responsible in the sense that they're supplying the weapons.

Mr. President, does that not, that theory not keep the United States responsible for supplying the weapons in Ukraine that has resulted in the slaughter of 500,000 Ukrainian young men and supplying the weapons to the IDF that has resulted in the slaughter of 27, 28, 29,000, we don't even know how many, civilians in Gaza. Did you? With that line that I'm going to hold responsible the people who supply the weapons. Yeah, the hypocrisy is wide open there. And I'm kind of surprised that there wasn't a follow-on question by one of our brave journalists to point that out to Mr. Biden. It's exactly the same situation, or in fact, even more so, in that the United States obviously has boots on the ground. The United States is consulting with Israel on an almost weekly basis.

Somebody is over there, a senior government official is in there working things out with Israel. We're totally complicit in the act. wants to concede that unless Iran were the agent making this proxy group carry out the action, that they're not guilty. I mean, this is supplying weapons to allies and things like that is a totally normal act in most places in the world uh where these relationships exist so it's uh again what is is wrong with this guy it it strikes me as odd that he he could not see the irony in what he was saying now this is scary it is it is very scary and it gets back to what you and i talked about originally i realized that international law is not the same as American law. But if this case were to be tried under American law, the United States would be a co-defendant.

I mean, let's face it, there would be no special military operation in Ukraine without the U.S. supplying weapons to Ukraine. And the IDF would stop tomorrow, as we know, as we've seen, if the U.S. stopped supplying it with weapons and ammunition. I just don't know how much longer this can go on with the president and the secretary of state saying, we want a two-state solution, we want a two-state solution. Netanyahu's saying, no way, no way. The defense minister of Israel saying, we're about to enter Hezbollah. The IDF dresses as women and as doctors and enters a hospital in the West Bank, not in Gaza, in the West Bank, and blows the brains out of three patients there because they said they had been involved in Hamas activity. About as clear a war crime if ever there was one. And nothing happens. and Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter and Colonel McGregor and Max Blumenthal

and Aaron Matei and I are about the only ones that are ranting and raving and complaining about this. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know, when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself, talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start? Talkspace. Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule, wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed,

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Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Yeah, well, I know a few others that are also. There are a lot of us out there. And one of the points that's really interesting is that essentially the opinion polls seem to suggest that the American public is not behind this stuff. And there's nobody having any say in it, except the people who are pushing these policies. And let's not leave the mainstream media out of this. The mainstream media is playing the Israeli narrative

as hard as it can. You cannot see an article appear anywhere in the mainstream media that essentially suggests that the Israelis are actually doing what everyone seems to have a lot of evidence to indicate they're doing, and they're getting away with it. And they probably think that this alleged exposure of the United Nations Relief Organization, for which they are providing no evidence, kind of pushes the narrative their way yet again. But this is awful. Yeah. Tony Blinken says, oh, we have intelligence reports. It's very serious. We know that the United States Relief or goddamned piece of paper? Forgive me for saying that.

I'm quoting your quotation in your piece. Well, you know, there is evidence that runs both ways on that one. There are people who claim to have been in the room, eyewitnesses, earwitnesses to what was said. And there are others who say, no, well, he didn't. He didn't actually say anything like that. It's, you know, it's been a quote that's been floating around for over 20 years now. It's obvious that he behaved as if he felt that way about the Constitution. I mean, a month after 9-11, they pushed through the Patriot Act,

probably the most unpatriotic piece of legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which criminalized speech. The Patriot Act allowed one FBI agent to authorize another FBI agent to seize records without a search warrant. I mean, that's a real, real compliance with the fourth amendment. I'm obviously being sarcastic here. The two AUMFs,

authorization for use of military force, one to pursue anybody anywhere on the planet who had anything to do with 9-11. That was still, that was recently used by uh by biden uh even though some of the people that he killed hadn't even been born on 9 11. the other aumf was used to invade afghanistan on the theory that or iraq on the theory that it had weapons of mass destruction which we now know uh it didn't These are passages of power from the Congress to the president, just like the War Powers Act is, allowing the president to pick a target,

demolish the target without a broad national consensus, without a declaration of war, without going to the Congress beforehand. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean, we have this kind of extra legal and extra constitutional structure that has evolved in particular since 9-11. And it's the presidents, the executives exploit this to do all kinds of things that would have been considered illegal and, you know, criminal acts. And they would have been probably prosecuted and sent to jail.

But now they get away with it by using the argument repeatedly that these people are threatening us. They're coming here to kill us it's uh it's like the the some of the arguments being floated from uh israeli sources and and the friends of israel that you know again this argument that if we don't fight hamas hamas over there uh they're gonna come over here and do it to us again like 9-11. And this stuff is ridiculous. Why is it that it doesn't matter who the president is that this stuff keeps happening? I mean, stated differently, does it matter who you vote for in the United States of America when it comes to war? Or are there forces? I have a feeling you're going to say yes, and my follow-up question will be to identify those forces that have a lock grip on the government and continually and persistently

and regularly and systematically push the government towards war. Well, yes. And I would identify the two biggest, well, actually, the biggest source is unitary. It's one thing. It's money. And I would point out that the defense industry, supporting congressmen that will vote the way they want, which means more war, is one source. And I would have to say the Israel lobby in the last 20 or 30 years being probably the most influential lobby over U.S. foreign policy. And I know some would disagree with me on that. But I think Israel has been pushing into wars for quite some time, and they've got the money and it goes to the same congressman it goes to the same people who want war and everybody lines their pockets out of it

and this is a a pathetic state for our country to have arrived at this uh junction in in history it it's uh it's just completely wrong we've've become a nation that accepts constant war. Joe Biden did not get elected and say that he was going to be in three wars by the next election coming up. And yet that's where we're at. And maybe we're going to be at four or five before we get through the year. So it almost doesn't matter if the president is a conservative Republican. I don't know how to characterize Trump, but he's obviously not liberal on anything. So let's say he's a conservative Republican. And let's say Joe Biden is a liberal Democrat. They're both in support of Israel. They're both in support of the genocide. Trump moved the U.S. embassy

illegally from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump appointed an ambassador to Israel who was a lobbyist for Israel. I mean, where were we going with this? How tight is the Israeli grip on the American government, whether the president is a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat? Well, the grip is as tight as it is because it works through a network of people that we call the neocons, the neoconservatives. Neoconservatives have managed in the last 20 years to entrench themselves in both political parties as the foreign policy experts. Wherever you go, you will find neoconservatives

in the think tanks, in senior government positions, and they're all pushing for the same sorts of policies, which are basically war all the time, basing this on what they perceive as the national interest for the United States to be the country that sets the rules and enforces the rules. And that's part of the thinking. And of course, there is the Israel factor that much of this started originally in the 1990s as a way of protecting Israel from criticism, because it was already clear that Israel was never going to allow a Palestinian state, that Israel is not a democracy. But this is how it all came about. Is the United States government corrupt? I would say it's completely corrupt. Because what bothers me more than what happens at the federal level is this stuff is creeping down to state levels and everything too uh you have in 35 states right now legislation or rules um that basically limit what citizens of those states can do if they are uh if they will not sign a paper saying that they oppose

any boycotts of israel boycotts are perfectly legal all through history they've been perfectly legal you choose not to buy a product or you choose not to support something and they're legal but in 35 states they're not that legal anymore these states uh will not do business with you if you're a vendor unless you sign a statement under oath uh opposing a boycott of Israel even, or of goods from Israel, even though, as you say, boycotts are perfectly legal economic mechanisms, it's voting with your pocketbook. You have two choices as to where to buy your t-shirts from. You can choose whichever shop you want on whatever basis you want, and the state can't interfere with that.

But if you have a contract to do business with, for example, the state of Florida, this is a Ron DeSantis nonsense, the state will terminate that contract unless you swear that you won't be involved in the boycott. That is known as the doctrine, a violation of the doctrine against unconstitutional conditions the government cannot condition a governmental benefit selling products to the government on the non-assertion of a fundamental liberty your right to choose with whom to do business but these states get away with it and the courts uh and the courts won't uh won't interfere with it um i alluded to trump earlier um is he as uh dangerous as biden uh because of his uh personal friendship with netanyahu uh and being wedded at the hip politically uh with the israelis well i would

as a judgment between comparing the two it's like which poison do you want to take and um as far as i'm concerned biden is more dangerous because he's more mentally detached, shall we say. And he has started three wars and maybe more to come. I think Trump is a little more wary on that issue, although he's a bit of a fake on it. He says we've got to get rid of all these useless wars, but then he didn't do anything about it. So that's kind of his thinking. But he comes out with some awful stuff. I mean, recently when there were some of these attacks on our U.S. illegal bases in Syria and Iraq,

Trump made the comment that if they spill one drop of American blood, we will spill gallons of their blood. I mean, this is a guy who's, you want him to be president of the United States? This is the way he thinks? But, you know, there's a broad acceptance in the public because they get scaremongered by the government, by the media all the time. They really think that there are people out there who are out to get us. And if there are people out there out to get us us they're doing it because of the way we behave why do we have 57 000 troops in the middle east and why do we have illegal bases in uh iraq uh and syria well we have 57 57 000 troops in the Middle East to basically support our proxies, if you want to call them that, our allies in the Middle East. So I'm including some of the Arab states like Saudi Arabia, which has been under American protection since the Second World War.

And, of course, Israel. A lot of the troops are there basically to respond to any threats to Israel. And there are various other issues. The troops that are in Syria and Iraq, well, in Syria, they're completely illegal. In Iraq, the parliament has twice asked the U.S. to remove its troops. And apparently there are some discussions even going on right now. But they're basically not wanted in those countries they're there essentially uh to enforce uh what they see as the uh american dictated rule of law in that region uh because

it is energy rich and there are various political issues that arise because of it and so that's that's the argument. But the argument is a false one. They're sitting ducks to get attacked like they happened five days ago, and they should be removed. Why don't we bring them all home? Trump said he was going to bring them home. I don't think he brought any home.

That's correct. What will happen, in your your view if Joe Biden follows, I can't even say this with a straight face, Lindsey Graham's advice and attacks Tehran, the capital of Iran? Well, Nikki Haley is suggesting the same thing. Must be in the water in South Carolina. But hopefully Biden won't do that. But if he attacks Iran on this theory that he who pays for it is as liable as he who uses it, okay, Joe, that makes you liable for genocide. We've been through that argument. But if he does that, wouldn't Iran respond significantly? Wouldn't that expose U.S. troops and even U.S. mainland, God forbid, to some sort of an attack?

Well, not only that, I mean, consider the fact that once you open the war there, the economic impact is going to be enormous. I mean, that whole region will cease to be an area through which energy supplies can flow and the iranians have a perfectly capable of doing that and so this is a stupid idea and i'm not surprised at lindsey graham nor am i surprised at nikki uh these people are stupid people who are basically, you know, playing the drum roll to get the support out, to show how strong they are. And, you know, we should, we should as a nation start to be getting a little tired of hearing that kind of crap. Tell me if you're tired of this. Cut number four, Chris.

We've made very, very clear from day one that we're going to defend our people, we're going to defend our personnel, we're going to defend our interests. And that's exactly what we've done. We've taken action, significant action, to deter groups, to degrade their capabilities in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen. At the same time, the President has been very clear that we want to prevent broader escalation. We want to prevent this conflict from spreading. So we are intent on doing both, that is, standing up for our people when they're attacked while at the same time

working every single day to prevent the conflict from growing and spreading troops are there illegally they're sitting ducks they're attacked we'll use it as an excuse to attack back but oh we don't want the war to spread we're going to spread it but we don't want it to spread that's basically what he said isn't it phil yeah he's saying we have to escalate it to keep it from escalating right uh this is a blink and speak right um here he is again number five chris the president said this i think, virtually from day one. To anyone who would try to use the crisis in the Middle East, the conflict in the Middle East, to sow further instability and to use it as an excuse to attack our personnel, we

will respond. We will respond strongly. We will respond at a time and place of our choosing. And obviously, I'm not going to telegraph what we might do in this instance or get ahead of the president, but I can, again, tell you that, as the president said yesterday, we will respond. And that response could be multileveled, come in stages, and be sustained over time. Sounds like the entry of troops to me, but who knows? I think he wants the run for re-election as a wartime president. Just my gut feeling. Everything else is failing. Our dear friend

Gerald Salenti, who can be very rough, as you know, with the stuff he says, has a great one-liner. When all else fails, they take you to war. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what we're seeing, because he's saying, essentially, we're going to be, as I say, escalating to keep it from escalating. And all this is really saying is that we are we are the smart guys here in the room and we're the ones that know how to control this situation and uh if anything has been demonstrated by the last three years is we have no capability to to understand anything or to control anything or even to understand what this alleged rule of law is supposed to mean. It's ridiculous. Bill Giraldi, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you again next week. All my best to you. Okay. Thank you very much. Of course. Coming up at four o'clock, more on all of this. And on the state of journalism, are journalists free to write what they want? I always thought the First Amendment said they can. Well, suppose they're in Israel or in Ukraine. Aaron Matei, four o'clock on suppression of journalists around the world.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.